The UK’s advertising watchdog has banned an advert by Anglian Water because it omitted information about the company’s record on sewage spills.
It is the first time the Advertising Standards Authority has banned a water company advert on environmental grounds. The regulator said a 2022 advert shown on television and online had not given a fair impression of Anglian’s environmental record and must not be broadcast again.
The advert had given the “overall impression” that Anglian was making “a positive overall environmental contribution”, but the company had also harmed the environment by discharging sewage into UK waterways, the ASA said. As a result, the adverts “omitted material information and were therefore misleading”, it ruled.
There has been widespread and vocal criticism of the UK’s privatised water companies because of the volume of raw sewage they discharge into rivers and the sea.
In 2022, 10 water and sewerage companies operating in England, including Anglian, reported that they had discharged sewage into rivers and the sea on 301,091 occasions. The real figure is likely to be higher because not all sewage outflows are monitored and reported.
Britain’s privatised water and sewerage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540mn the previous year.
US, EU and UK regulators have become more focused on potential corporate greenwashing and climate-related disclosures. Last week, the ASA banned a series of oil and gas company adverts as part of a greenwashing crackdown.
In its ruling against Anglian Water, the ASA noted that in 2021, the most recent year for which data was available, the company had scored two out of four stars in an assessment by the UK Environment Agency.
That meant the “company requires improvement”, with the number of sewage pollution incidents among the areas needing work, the ASA said.
Anglian, which operates in the east of England, received a £2.65mn fine in April for discharging 7.5mn litres of sewage into the North Sea. The fine represents about 0.6 per cent of operating profits.
Anglian Water said: “We care deeply about helping look after our region and apologise that we unintentionally misled customers with this advertisement. We fully accept the ruling and took prompt action to remove the advert in line with the Advertising Standard Authority’s guidance.”
The ASA this week dismissed a complaint on environmental grounds about an advert by water company Severn Trent, ruling that it was unlikely to have been misleading.
